19 Facts About Andrianjaka

Andrianjaka reigned over the Kingdom of Imerina in the central highlands region of Madagascar from around 1612 to 1630.

Andrianjaka obtained a sizable cache of firearms and gunpowder, materials that helped to establish and preserve his dominance and expand his rule over greater Imerina.

Andrianjaka designated the twelve sacred hills of Imerina that were to become the spiritual and political heartland of the Merina empire, contributing to the establishment of the kingdom's traditional boundaries; clans were assigned to specific regions within his kingdom, further defining the cultural landscape.

Andrianjaka consolidated power through such measures as appropriating the folk tradition of sampy, thereby ensuring all the powers traditionally attributed to these idols were under the control of the sovereign alone.

Andrianjaka was the second son of Ralambo, ruler of the Kingdom of Imerina in the central highlands of Madagascar.

Andrianjaka was actively involved in providing support to his father's military campaigns to expand and defend Ralambo's realm.

Andrianjaka reportedly suggested an innovative defensive tactic to annihilate the enemy by filling the town's hadivory with cow dung and rice husks, lighting it on fire, and covering the smoldering embers with burnt rice stalks so that the area resembled a patch of land recently re-cleared for planting through tavy.

In one account of this legend, Andrianjaka was reportedly engrossed in strategizing a win in a difficult game of fanorona and so refused to admit audience to the royal messenger until after the game was over.

Andrianjaka moved his capital from Ambohidrabiby to Ambohimanga upon ascending to the throne around 1610 or 1612.

Andrianjaka was reportedly the first Merina leader to receive Europeans around 1620 and traded slaves in exchange for guns and other firearms to aid in the pacification of rival principalities, obtaining 50 guns and three barrels of gunpowder to equip his army.

Andrianjaka transformed social divisions into spatial divisions by assigning each clan to a specific geographical region within his kingdom.

Andrianjaka made a demonstration of royal power by appropriating the local tradition of sampy, previously created by village chiefs and others for personal or local spiritual ends, restricting their number to twelve and declaring their creation a strictly royal prerogative.

The king imposed an intimidating change to the traditional form of justice, the trial by ordeal: Andrianjaka ordered that rather than administering tangena poison to an accused person's rooster to determine their innocence by the creature's survival, the poison would instead be ingested by the accused himself.

Andrianjaka constructed a royal fortified compound on the hilltop as the capitol of a new town at the site which he named Antananarivo in honor of the thousand soldiers who aided in capturing and protecting the hill.

Andrianjaka reportedly succeeded with minimal bloodshed: according to oral history, the encampment of his army at the foot of Analamanga was sufficient to secure the submission of the Vazimba.

Andrianjaka's fortified compound came to be known as the Rova of Antananarivo and constituted the heart of his newly founded city of Antananarivo.

Soon thereafter, two more houses were constructed; Andrianjaka designated the construction space and design for a row of royal tombs.

The rule of Andrianjaka continued uninterrupted until his death at the Rova of Antananarivo around 1630.

Andrianjaka was the first king to be buried on the grounds of the Rova, his tomb forming the first of the Fitomiandalana.